


Portmanteau

by Prochytes



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 09:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not a word. It’s a sentence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Portmanteau

**Author's Note:**

> Small spoilers for _Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D_ 1x01. Written for consci_fan_mo on LJ in 2013.

“You asked Ward. How did that work for you?”

“He was firm. As always. He wouldn’t spill.”

“And then you asked May. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that didn’t help.”

Skye grimaced. “May is your right hand. So talking to her is, well, talking to the hand. You know when she gives you that look like she’s figuring out where she’s going to bury the body?”

“If I know May, she decided that less than a second after you met. The look you get now is her wondering where she’ll grab a coffee once she wipes the grave-soil off her boots.”

“Reassuring. Not.”

“So, finally, you’re asking me.” Coulson leaned backwards in his chair. “What’s bothering you, Skye?”

“Fitz. And Simmons. Fitzsimmons. That’s kinda the point.”

“Explain.”

“Yesterday. In the lab. I asked Fitz a question. Simmons answered it.”

“Nothing strange about that.”

“There wouldn’t be. Except Simmons wasn’t in the room when I asked the question. She bustled in just afterwards. All those doors are sound-proofed. There’s no way that she could have heard what I was saying.”

“Did they notice that you’d noticed?”

“Oh yes.” Skye thought back to the fixed smile on Simmons’ face, more frozen than a dozen super-soldiers, and the blizzard of deflecting Britspeak that had followed: aglets, ferrules, and all the lexicon of unregarded things that demurely stop bigger things from falling apart. “They noticed.”

Coulson sighed. “What I’m about to tell you goes way beyond Level Seven. It doesn’t leave this room. Are we clear?”

Skye nodded.

“There are about four people on this planet smarter than Fitzsimmons. I know, because I’ve met them: Foster; Selvig; Banner; Stark. No one else. No _one_ else. Like you said, that’s kinda the point. Fitzsimmons is two minds that _both_ inhabit two brains, reaping in the economies of scale. Think of it as a flat-share.”

“May said that there was no credible evidence for extra-sensory perception.”

“She’s right. What Fitzsimmons does is about as intra-sensory as it gets.”

“Have they always been able to do that? Are they,” Skye groped for the term of art, “Gifted?”

"No. An accident with an 0-8-4, back when they were trainees. Turned out the artefact was a D. I. Y. set, for establishing a colony of Kree. A kit to home-brew a Supreme Intelligence. The two of them started the device up, by accident. They’ve been Fitzsimmons ever since.”

Skye’s eyes narrowed. “You’re hazing me again, right? Like with the truth serum?”

Coulson cocked his head on one side. “Am I?”

Skye shivered. Minds brushing together forever, as in the awkward ballet of a narrow corridor. Not a moment’s peace. Even May, in her silent tower, did not endure that. “I really hope so.”

FINIS


End file.
